James McGinlay, the Assistant Director for Sustainable Communities, introduced the item.  He highlighted that suspected breaches of planning can be reported anonymously.  Each report is then prioritised to determine the response period that applies.  Broadly, reports fall into one of two categories: where there is a suspect breach of a given planning consent or where there has been no application for planning permission.

Currently, the number of backlog cases is exceeding the target (by approximately 50 cases).  A significant number of these will require no further action because they are not breaches and in instances of actual breaches, an assessment will be taken of community impact before deciding what further action is taken.  In cases where there is no further action, there needs to be transparency with the original complainant on the reasons.  Noted that there is a good quantity of reported breaches that are actually neighbour disputes or relate to other council services (such as environmental health or parking).  Any internal changes to a building are not a planning enforcement issue but a matter for building regulations.

There has been an increase in the backlog of cases signifying a decline in performance during 2017.  This has been caused by two factors; 1) a reduction in the size of the planning enforcement team and 2) difficulties in recruiting to vacant planning enforcement positions.  As a result, there has been exploration of alternative ways to resource the team and this month work will start with Capita to stabilise the backlog. 

It is also planned to use technology to increase productivity.  This will include a mobile solution to allow officers to work on site more easily and still progress cases.  Additionally, it is planned to develop an online reporting facility which will allow for better screening of submissions.  This will filter out those cases where they are not a breach and prevent further build up of cases.

A collaboration with other councils (Sutton and Kingston) has been and continues to be explored.  However, it is hard to see how this will provide benefit given each borough has its own policies and difficulties recruiting into the planning enforcement team.

In response to member questions, the Assistant Director clarified:

·         Recognised the need to make the system more transparent.  This will include communicating updates/outcomes to appropriate Councillors to avoid their enquiries causing additional work to the enforcement team.  There will be a process review including how to provide feedback to members for example when a case is closed;

·         Additionally, the new online reporting system will allow filtering to stop cases being reported where there hasn’t been a breach.  However, the procurement process is only just starting with delivery 12 months away;

·         Difficulties in recruiting officers to the planning enforcement team aren’t just as a result of the salary level.  There is a requirement that all planning enforcement officers have to be qualified planners and planning enforcement isn’t such an attractive career option as the others open to those these qualifications.  Campaigns are happening nationally and pan-London to highlight planning enforcement as a worthwhile career;

·         Further work is currently underway to understand the full breakdown of planning enforcement cases to inform the development of a new protocol/policy, to ensure that the team has the right staffing and that this is reflected in the new e-forms which will be developed; and

·         Collaboration with other boroughs could be beneficial but not where they are all under the same pressures (ie: a lack of staffing).  Peaks in demand across a number of services have been analysed and this has shown that the services tend to be busy at the same times.  It is these issues rather than any lack of financial incentive that is limiting the ability to achieve a collaboration.

RESOLVED: That the Panel be routinely supplied with trend data on the number of planning enforcement cases that are six months old or more.